If you had asked me before I became a parent, at what age do children start the whole “Why, why why” endless questioning routine, I would have guessed five or six. Wrong. Anna started in with the whys at two years old, and now at three, she’s still going strong.

But in the realm of parental annoyances, this is one of the most charming. Sure, when I’m juggling a simultaneous assault of an angry nursing baby, a dog barking his head off at passers-by, the phone ringing, maybe even food burning on the stove, collecting the wherewithal to carefully construct an honest yet age-appropriate, comprehensible answer to gems such as “Who is God?” and “Why is the sky blue?” is not easy. But it’s incredibly sweet to see her curiosity about the world unfold, her wondering and her imaginations.

And half the time, she constructs her own explanations anyway.

“Maybe a bird painted the sky blue, Mommy.”

Maybe, why not?

“Look, there’s God, Mommy,” she said the other day as we walked by her Lutheran church preschool and spotted the female pastor.

That’s not God, I told her, that’s the pastor.

“Well, why does she have the same hair as God?” Anna asked.

Um.

“What’s under the road?”

Dirt.

“What’s under the dirt?”

More dirt?

“This is my baby Jesus. His daddy is at work!”

Well, technically…

“Why don’t you work, Mommy?” she wondered one day. I told her I do work, I take care of her.

“I want you to work and Daddy to stay home.” Thanks, kid. Nothing like some positive validation on the job.

When I tell her I’m going to eat her up, she protests. But then there’ll be no more Anna, she says!

We went to a breastfeeding support group last week. Two women were discussing something about their babies, when apropos of nothing, Anna saunters up and interrupts the meeting (yes, I have that kid, the one who goes up to strange adults and starts talking to them. There’s really nothing stopping it) to earnestly inform everyone “My baby brother Henry cries when you put him down!”

2 Responses to Things Kids Say

I love this! Sophia is at the same stage: why to everything. She is actually sitting on my lap right now as I type this and saw Anna and said: “Mommy! Where does she live? I want to play with her. I want to go to her house and play with her Mommy!” There are times when I wish I could bottle up all the things she says right now and save them for later, the thrill and annoy and warm my heart all at the same time.

Aww, Anna would love to play with Sophia!
I agree: I feel like it’s unfair that they can’t stay this age forever. Like, how can the universe let that happen? I wish two and three years old could last five years instead of two. Maybe we need to start filming them more to immortalize this stage.